Can a Good Lawyer Be a Bad Person?

Abstract

Assume a just legal system in a constitutional democracy. Assume a person wishing to achieve a lawful goal. Assume a lawyer who agrees to assist her. If the lawyer uses only legal means, can a coherent theory of moral philosophy nevertheless label the lawyer's conduct immoral? Can a good lawyer be a bad person?' Let us grant that laws may be inequitable or inequitably used in even the most enlightened society. These may allow unjust ends or the use of unjust means. Legal and moral are not congruent terms. Let us also agree that a person may be judged immoral though she pursues a legal goal in a lawful way; and conversely, that some illegal acts civil disobedience at certain times may be judged morally worthy. Let us finally assume that if a principal's lawful conduct may be immoral, so may the conduct of an agent who knowingly assists it. Even so, is there something special about legal agents that exempts them from these precepts? Can lawyers say: You are mistaken. I am a lawyer. Your judgments do not apply to me. To all the others, perhaps, but not to me.? Can they, as Murray Schwartz puts it in The Good Lawyer, fil[e] a demurrer, rather than an answer, to the charge of immorality ?2 Those who answer yes may rely on attributes of the legal system